"What If" Products

We live in an era of “What If Products”.

What if Products are incomplete. They grant us with a preview of what might be possible, and invite us to imagine what could be.

What if Products prompt our imagination through their use. The visions they point towards tend to be open-ended ideas. Our minds go on autocomplete mode to fill in the gaps. They engage our creativity in the co-development of them in our minds - sometimes in our own unique and preferred way.

Many products are currently in their What If states. Their design precedes their capabilities, or their capabilities precede their design. They are founded on assumptions about what the next paradigm shift might look like. The future they are built for inspires us to extend and extrapolate possibilities of what they might enable, and what we might be empowered with as a result.

What I appreciate most about What If Products is that they invite us to contemplate boundless potential instead of fixed states. They tap into our neurochemistry differently, which can be particularly engaging.

It is also interesting to consider What If Products as self-fulfilling prophecies, where their users contribute to manifesting the version of them they imagine. Gifting users with What If Products is a way to prime them with their desired outcome, and indirectly involve them in the process of creating it.

I foresee a world in which technology becomes increasingly participatory - from generative software to interactive media. What If Products are another instantiation of what participatory technology entails - welcoming our participation not only in the physical or digital world, but also in our minds.